I get a lot of emails. Most remain unopened, and I delete many of them without a thought (and I love email). This mercenary approach to inbox management keeps me sane and prevents me from being busy for the sake of being busy.

Most people’s email inboxes are noisy environments. This means if you want to be heard above the noise, you need to focus on delivering quality campaigns that scream “benefits.”

For example, today I received at least 10 emails from organizations wishing me season’s greetings. While I appreciated the sentiment, I didn’t open one of them. The subject lines told me everything I needed to know. Any further engagement would have delayed me from getting more important things done (like getting out the door and home to the family for the holidays).

Note: I’m not suggesting that sending a season’s greeting isn’t a valid campaign idea. It will, however, do little to drive engagement (and you shouldn’t expect any from this type of campaign). A better idea would be to send an email highlighting opening hours/service levels over the holiday season. Sometimes you should also question whether an email campaign is the right medium. If I want to make a client feel valued, I would rather send a personal message than a bulk campaign.

Be Useful

I judge the importance of any commercial email by how useful it will be to me professionally or personally. If the subject line doesn’t pique my interest, it’s just noise, and it will be ignored.

Because so many marketers insist on simply adding to the noise in your email inbox, great subject lines (highlighting truly useful emails) tend to jump out and demand engagement.

Four Tips for Being Heard above the Noise

Be Useful: Only send the right message to the right people at the right time. This means segmenting your lists and building targeted campaigns.

Write Great Subject Lines: Nothing will kill an email’s chance of success faster than a poorly written subject line.

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